


Viaticum

by havocthecat



Category: Priest (2011)
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Gen, Introspection, Temporary Character Death, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2749673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, priests are tempted.  <i>All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.</i>  Sometimes, priests fall from grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Viaticum

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to seren_ccd and carmarthen, both of whom betaread this for me and were infinitely patient until it was posted.

_Kyrie eléison._

They fight. They have always fought. Their bodies were blades, honed and sharpened to a razor's edge by the Church. They receive their orders from the Council of the Monsignors, who received them from the Bishop, who has heard directly from the Archbishop, who knelt to receive God's blessing from the Cardinals, who dispense orders from the Holy See.

Rome fell centuries ago, but God protected His people. The line of succession has always been clear. Five hundred and more generations after St. Peter was crucified in the inverse image of Jesus Christ, the Pope protects all of God's people from the heathen scourge.

There have been those who have chosen not to bow before the truth of God's faith. They were subsumed under the tides of the devil's hordes.

_Christe eléison_

He knows this vampire hive, Mira Sola, is a tomb. He knows it is _his_ tomb.

The battle is endless. Their souls are weary. When they fall in battle, they are told, God welcomes them into the Heavenly Father's presence, and they live in grace with Him for all of eternity.

They are told. His own faith was lost years ago, subsumed under the weight of countless deaths. He follows the Church's orders, God's orders, because he knows no other life. 

He spends uncounted days and nights in the darkness, his sight growing dim with every drop of blood taken from him by the creatures. Satan's hordes feed on human blood. It is a parody of the Blood of Christ. A perversion.

Thou shalt not kill. 

He fades, his body failing, but with the stain of mortal sin still upon his soul. The murder of those who have given themselves to the vampires is still a violation of the Commandments. 

_Kyrie eléison._

He asked for nothing. He endured. He longed for death. For peace to be granted to him, as it had to his brothers and sisters.

There was no thought of suicide. Even for someone like him, with questions and doubts, he couldn't. His faith in the Church was lost, but he would do as God willed instead.

 

_Et ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem._

He likes to think that he spent forty days and forty nights in the darkness. He knows it was his time in the wilderness. He came face-to-face with Satan on a cliff.

The queen of the Mira Sola hive came to him. Her great, black wings flapped in the darkness. She crawled atop his body as the lights dimmed, and her blood dripped into his mouth.

She chose him. He went into her arms, became one with her. He was embraced by the vampires, brought to the brink of death and madness.

In his fall, he was reborn, from a priest who walked within God's grace to an inhuman bringer of death. He was made stronger. He was made faster. Her blood damned him; it bequeathed him gifts that God would never grant to a mere priest.

He walked in the darkness as a vampire, but stood without fear in the light as a man.

_Sed libera nos a malo._

He spent years waiting for this day. He planned, directing the familiars and the vampires. He watched, as Shannon grew older and more beautiful. As Owen grew bitter with jealousy. As Lucy blossomed into the light.

His brothers and sisters were a part of the plan, but especially one brother. The brother who let go. Who let him be dragged into the darkness.

He felt regret at Shannon's death. Owen's was a joy. 

Lucy, though. His brother's child would be his bride. They would take the darkness in the cities and the hives and spread it across the whole of the Earth, until this pathetic ball of dirt belonged to Satan's children.

_Accipe, frater, Viáticum Córporis Dómini nostri Jesu Christi, qui te custódiat ab hoste maligno, et perdúcat in vitam aetérnam._

God had abandoned the cities. If there were any divine presence left, it would have been ground out of the people by now. Public worship. Confessional booths, with comforting pablum for the masses. Penance spat out by recordings of the monsignors.

Priests, good men and women, disbanded and set to cleaning out shit and scrubbing waste off the streets. There was no fight left in them, the Church had seen to that.

He could change that. His brothers and sisters would be given purpose again. 

They would fight a glorious war, and, in the end, the priests would follow in his damned footsteps, or they would die for the Church they chose to defend.

_Amen._

\--end--

**Author's Note:**

> Latin Translations:  
>  _Kyrie eléison._ \- Lord have mercy.  
>  _Christe eléison_ \- Christ have mercy.  
>  _Et ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem._ \- And lead us not into temptation.  
>  _Sed libera nos a malo._ \- But deliver us from evil.  
>  _Accipe, frater, Viáticum Córporis Dómini nostri Jesu Christi, qui te custódiat ab hoste maligno, et perdúcat in vitam aetérnam._ \- Receive, brother, the Viaticum of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ; and may He keep you from the malignant foe, and bring you to life everlasting. 
> 
> You can find more information on the Roman Catholic pre-Vatican II rite of Extreme Unction at [fisheaters](http://www.fisheaters.com/unction.html).


End file.
